(not so) Smooth Operator!
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- Check the Smooth Operator here: babyaud.io/smo...
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The harmonics issue is fixed! I've made a new video here: ruclips.net/video/MAoHxnKFZyY/видео.html
"How can something that sounds bad end up at a mix engineers desk?"
Me: I recorded it. That's how.
If it sounded great, I wouldn't need a mix engineer. lol
@@DBCisco That’s not necessarily true. A song/track could sound great production wise, but not be there yet mix-wise... which is the intended way a song should end up at a mixing engineers desk.
"How can something that sounds bad end up at a mix engineer's desk?"
Every single Synt plugin preset: allow us to introduce ourselves.
@@deadlyrobot5179 lol
@@KnzoVortex You don't grasp sarcasm, do you ?
I wanted to add a bit of perspective on this. I’ve also been in email contact with Wytse. I hope he’ll pin this comment to give us a fair chance to answer back.
Regarding the "harmonics":
Most compressors will generate harmonics at very extreme settings. However, after seeing this video, we went through everything and found some strange behavior in the windowing of the overlap-add stage of the algorithm. We’re working on implementing a fix for this in the 1.0.1 version that’s out shortly (hopefully next week). I cannot guarantee that it will eliminate 100% of all future artifacts during extreme stress tests - as these are expected side-effects of spectral compression - but it should make it a lot better. Stay tuned for that. Wytse says he’ll review the plugin again once the update is out.
Regarding the use of the plugin in this video:
Many commenters have already pointed this out: It’s not an ideal use-case for Smooth Operator to be applied to already mastered tracks with the the threshold cranked all the way down and none of the tone-shaping nodes engaged. Then you’re basically asking for it to sound bad! ALL PLUGINS can of course be both used and misused, and while I have a lot of respect for Wytse’s skills, I believe Smooth Operator was largely misused in this video (perhaps even intentionally?).
A suitable use-case would be on a source that needs actual work and where you start by identifying what it is you’re looking for the plugin to do - before applying the curve gently and in a shape that matches your desired frequency response. Examples of how this sounds are to be found in other RUclips reviews.
Regarding the general tone of this video:
As a company it is normally not our prerogative to “fight back” if we get a bad review. So this is a first for me. But Wytse has 116k followers and is hardly “the little guy” in this case. He’s built a big audience by having a controversial style. I believe, however, that with great influence comes also the responsibility to be decent and to treat others with respect. I don’t think he lived up to that responsibility in this case as it was hardly a neutral review of something we just spent 18 months developing. That's pretty devastating - for the company and on a personal level. As a developer, we’re powerless when something like this happens. I’m happy that he’s offered to review the plugin again when the update is out and am hoping for a more balanced approach (no pun!) the second time around.
/Caspar
BABY Audio
Caspar, you want users to believe that you spent "18 months developing" a plugin you bargain out for $39 in the end??!? The spin you're trying to give it here speaks for itself.
How do you explain that with similar test with soothe2 (your direct competitor I think) , no artefacts or harmonics are present (did the tests myself) ?
@@stephenwright7142 It is the truth. I'm happy to talk about the economics of running a plugin company, but this thread is already so derailed that I wonder if it's the right forum? The short answer is we'd rather sell more plugins at a lower price than a few at a high price. We believe that's the right, user-friendly, approach in 2021 and it's working for us. It doesn't mean that we spend any less time making our plugins than we would if they cost twice the price.
@@AlexTritok We're hoping it's due to the bug we found in v1.0.0 and that the fix we're implementing will solve it. We expect the 1.0.1 update to be out next week.
Caspar, I'm glad to see you guys came here to clarify and even assume that there's a problem with this plugin. That's very honest and transparent to your customers. I've ran similar tests and I have contact you guys over instagram about this issue. I've got a very kind answer from Baby Audio.
Even though the issue is real, I think this wasn't a very fair test of real life situations. Not a single vocal track was tested, no guitars, nothing. Just full tracks. Don't get me wrong, this aspect should be tested as well. Even some of the presets are intended to mastering.
From my perspective, I think this plugin needs to improve: more bands to tweak would be nice, oversampling and anti-aliasing features are a must.
Otherwise, I have to praise the effort to pull out a cheap alternative to Soothe, DSEQ, Teote and others. This is a very expensive kind of tool and sometimes intimidating for newbies. I guess there's no need to lie about how long does it took to be developed. 18 months is not that much to be honest. This is still a very early version that I've truly hope to get better in the future. I'm trusting you guys will improve this plugin, so I bought it to support the work of your company. Don't be discouraged :)
This thing has been really useful in my workflow. I make heavily processed electronic music and sometimes after running a sound through a lot of creative processing I need to tame some harsh frequencies. This smooth operator saves me a lot of time, very happy to have it! :)
The reason why people in the past didn't use soothe or smooth operator is because they had budgets to record full albums with top of the line equipment. The reason why smooth operator and soothe exist is because we now use free vsts and cheap plugins that introduce a bunch of artifacts and MP3s as acapellas and no, we don't have a full budget to record in Metropolis studios. That's why there's a place for these tools too.
Lol so true. That's why many professional producer or engineer didn't think they need it even when the soothe 2 hype. They just try but ended up not using it
Thats half true. The problem lays in between the computer and the chair.
In the past it didn't all matter what equipment you had. It depended on audio engineers like myself working in large studios.
Engineers were rented by the hour separately from the cost of the studio per hour that was rented, in studios way before the "Home Studio" revolution happened.
Back then the record labels would NOT release the record without approval that was on the pre-master on a DAT (Digital Audio Tape) that was bounced from a 24 or 48 track analogue tape,
and going to the Mastering Engineer FIRST. Mastering engineers where the gate keepers of music industry back then, again before the "Home Studio" revolution happened.
You would be extremely hard pressed for a label to release a record before it went to a mastering engineer.
And the mastering engineer ok'ed the pre-master with the original engineer when the production happened.
A mastering engineer would actually tell the producer flat out "Go back and do it again, I'm not mastering this like this." And they would give some advice on how to fix it.
Now these days all of a sudden everyone has studios in their homes and they believe they are now audio & mastering engineers just because they purchased
affordable audio equipment that people so now enjoy in their "home studios" then plugins and after plugins are now the feeding frenzy of these people.
Then all of a sudden everyone needs all kinds of gimmicky features that we never needed before.
Millions of songs were released between the 50's to the 90's before all this new fanfair of home studios came into light that now every tom, john and mary can now have.
And they NEVER needed all this gimmicky stuff. People just hired professional and approved audio engineers, usually referred by mastering engineers, labels and
other industry professionals working in labels or mastering plants.
These days the problem is not only the plugins and their gimmicks, its the person in between the computer and the chair.
Tom elmhirst was at metropolis studios and is using a lot of notches on vocals, even Adele crazy good recordings and Amy Winehouse
@@TwstedTV PREACH! But frendo...don't you know The Beatles used Soothe 2 and Smooth Operator on every record?? That's why they sounded so good.
@@TwstedTV word, my brother. The world is now full of wanna-be EDM producers (maybe because you don’t need to master any instruments to make music? idk) and of wanna-be gurus that teach engineering. Kids don’t know any better and will fall for any shiny new plugin or sample pack that will make their productions sound “commercial” or “pro”. Oh and always master as loud as you can or you won’t be able to compete!!
It’s sad, really, I’m all for giving people the opportunity to express their talent, but it turned into a shitstorm. We can only hope to educate them better, and of course, accept to be educated ourselves.
bought it a few days ago, just tried it out on vocals and it does smooth certain stuff, im not using it like to extremes or anything, don't think that's the way it is intended to be used, just find what's bugging you, and have it touch up that area and then do the creative vintage EQ/tube saturation/compression or whatever chain you want. Not a silver bullet for all your audio needs, nothing really is like that, but it does smooth things out with little effort. My workflow kinda looks like Edit->pitch correct if needed->smooth stuff out when needed-> bounce in place
"Something hasn't been recorded the right way and I have to fix it" (polish a turd basically). Story of my life in movie audio post production.
Jep... That's clearly film post pro. Business as usual. Unfortunately. 😭😂👍
I mix tracks and post audio that comes in from all around the world and this plugin is very useful and effective if you use it for what it's designed for. I used it on 2 projects last week and like it far more than Soothe which to my ear dulls details. Smooth Operator is useless on complete mixes and very good on reducing resonances and harshness on individual tracks when you lightly kiss the problem areas - before you do other processing. You don't have to push very far into it before it becomes radical and useless, but when used with a deft touch it's great.
Totally agreed especially its magic on controlling badly recorded v.o or dialog. Sounds much more neutral than soothe2 which I also own.
tbh, this plug does what I WISHED my copy of Soothe would do. This one's much more musical. Big thumbs up from me.
"How can something that has bad resonances end up at a mix engineers desk?"
Because not everything is recorded with u47s through vintage neves.
Lots of well written music has been recorded badly due to budget constraints and musicians not being engineers. Some of the best musicians I know are broke AF and make do with whatever they have.
I remember a friend showing me soothe and I was hugely skeptical. When I expressed my skepticism he said "That's because you have four Neumann's to choose from. Wait till you get a vocal recorded with an nt1." These sorts of tools (resonance suppression, spectral compression, soothe, gulfoss, this plug etc etc etc) help more music get to the market in a state that more closely resembles some artists' visions: So personally I'm all for them.
That said, I have no intention of integrating them into my regular workflow. Hahahaha.
I bought this plugin the day it came out and for me, it's been a welcome addition to my toolbox! I'm a full-time freelance engineer and I often get very questionable quality recordings lol. It's great on a vocal track or bus! Also works nicely on guitars.
I like it, For him using it on Sandstorm why would you take a sander to already fixed and painted fender, He didn't really look into it, now I question all of his reviews I see what he's doing now which is fine.
Deffo useful tool for certain applications
@@rickmayer4002 I tend to agree with him on the low end. Smooth Operator doesn't react very well to the low end but I typically pull the middle to the top, find the specific frequency I want to attack, and adjust the Q. Part of his method is to not read the manual or familiarize himself at all with the plugin so he wasn't exactly using it correctly. The Sinewave test was really strange tho! I'm a big fan of harmonics but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be doing that lol. Hopefully some updates are on the way! He also does state that these vids are not "reviews" lol.
@@matt_nyc_audioengineer May be I haven't tried it on bass I have some five string recorded maybe I'll try the sidechain and see if it helps control it.
@@matt_nyc_audioengineer I find it's really good on low mids, things like cellos and basses which will have a lot of weird resonances and stuff
I don’t think of it at all like an ai, just as an eq that I have to shape myself. I push the main threshold all the way up to start (Not push it down like you did) and then only cut out the harsh frequencies I’m trying to fix, and it works great! Does need some refining but for the price I’m not complaining
Thank you for pointing out the 3 Dimension thickness of this plugin - Totally would have missed that
They look a little thick for my taste. I prefer my VSTs to be thin and crispy like brick oven pizza.
Indeed. The most important part of the plugin for sure.
Throwing it out there that many producers use samples, DIY acapellas/stems, etc., that have harsh resonances. Synths have harsh frequencies as well. It's a bold assumption that all recordings producers use will be clean.
I think spectral compression is becoming popular due to what you mentioned, sub par recording. Everyone especially with Covid is recording in makeshift bedroom studios on super low budgets so are using these kind of software to make up for not being able to record properly.
Even at that point Id suggest fixing that stuff in RX...
It's much more convinent visually and RXElements often go on sale for liek 20£/30$
Shout out to the podcast producers, they did excellent work this last year. Although it was also funny seeing the broadcast people having a harder time adjusting to the new reality.
@@DaveChips yeah. The producer club thing, although I dont really like monthly, is quite a nice deal. You get all of the izotope pro versions for $20 a month.
it's like a spectral limiter. Might be useful on individual sounds to take out resonance or peaks, I definitely think it could be useful in a production setting when EQing a sound, but not sure about mixing/mastering...
"-Meet your new mixing assistant !
- Hi !"
is probably the best joke of the video
I have used the Smooth Operator to level out the ringing in your opinion and I now find it soothing and I find myself thinking "That is nice on the ear!" Some will probably say "Eyh, wait a dseq3ond, what is going on here", and so be it.
Your name miss a O should be Burrosquito ... as per your comment !!!
You're not going to like a plugin if you use it wrong. Mostly you're supposed to use this by shaping the curve to only catch large resonances in single tracks, not just keep it flat and go ham on a mastered song.
You should go back to the drawing board with this one.
Got this on release day and I've used it to successfully rid guitars, keys and vox of frequencies that jumped out or nasty harmonics. Works for me when its used subtly.
Hey Wytse, to me it looks like the added harmonics to the sine wave are the result of it trying to fill in the curve you drew. So not that abnormal, just trying do what you asked it to do.
I bought it..I have DSEQ and I tried Soothe2 which is a little pricey for me tbh. A lot of people in my genre don't care too much about crystal clear quality. I used this on a few samples and instruments and it worked well for my taste, gave them good brightness and controlled some resonant frequecies. I bought their entire bundle bc I liked a few of their other offerings..
On the other hand a lot of home recordings with budget or entry level gears do not sound good. They have all sorts of unwanted frequencies and harmonics. For those applications I think this is a really good plugin provided one knows to use it.
I don't even think this thing is smart enough to know when to take away the "bad" or "problematic" frequencies from a recording. It just seems like it compresses any frequency that is loud in general.
Hahaha it's so funny seeing lots of comment's saying it's a shitty plugin just because they don't know how to properly use it. It's not Soothe, it's not Gullfoss, its none of that. Sounds amazing
I agree. I usually like this guy’s thoughts and opinions on plugins, but this one he seemed to judge unfairly. This is NOT a “throw it on your mix and it instantly sounds better” AI type plugin. This is a tool that you have to learn how to use correctly, and when you do, it actually does the job it’s intended to do quite well. I demoed this for myself when it came out last week and I liked it so much I bought it. It does something very special for top end and harshness that would be difficult to recreate with just a multiband compressor.
@@treossmann5802 exactly man, and honestly i have tested this for days in a huge amount of cases and i always ended up liking what it does. I put it on 10 different projects i already released and replaced my old master with just this and a clipper and it sounded way cleaner, i also spent some time tweaking it for sure, but at the end i liked it more than my mastering chain
Why didn't you do the sine-wave test in the smart: EQ3 video?
He just did that to test the visual freq analyzer because he could tell it wasn’t updating accurately. So he generated a 50hz sine wave to see if it accurately displayed a 50hz sine wave. Noticing all the added harmonics was a completely unrelated accident. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, lots of plugins are designed to do that. But it’s also a very odd thing for this kind of plug-in to do. It should disclose that it’s intentionally generating harmonics, that it’s not just a smart dynamic EQ/multiband.
I think you forget that not every single sound in a track is made by a recording of a real instrument. If you get into really weird sound design you have to make stuff sound bad and then good again to achieve certain results. Maybe this plugin should be viewed as a tool for this kind of sounddesign
I bought it after watching this review. I'm using it on my inputs channels, just after the automatic gain rider. This thing works great as a safety net for any unwanted spikes. Soothe2 works better as many others have commented, I just couldn't justify spending EUR200 on it. This does what I need for EUR35...
Any plugin of these characteristics put on the master bus can cause a lot of problems if used in an unsubtle way. I think these new technological tools need to be studied much more. It doesn't seem like a video to me that actually shows the actual work this plugin can actually do.
As a mixing engineer I would never use it on the master bus, least of all such a new and unknown tool.
Already bought it and after some testing my inital exitement over this one has reduced a lot. But it has worked well on some individual channels. One thing I really like though is the sidechain functionality. In that mode is works like a more controllable alternative to Trackspacer.
This one lives on my vocal chain now. I like how it increases clarity. i also use it on fx returns (reverb/delay sidechain) and acoustic guitars for the same purpose. the sidechain effect on it is amazing to me. I don't really use it for anything corrective. I use it to get a track into the tonal ball park that I'm looking for and them add more to it from there.
Exactly... a useful tool 👍🏼
Love using this in parallel through Reaper, does what it says! Especially harsh vocals, cymbals and strings.
With the exception of pro studios, where a skilled recording engineer is handling the miking, the processing and the tracking, the days of “getting it right at the source” are gone.
Because recording is being done mostly in bedrooms/basements these days - and by those who don’t know (or don’t care) to take the time to get their recordings to sound good at the source, the mindset of “I’ll just set up the mic, record it and whatever problems there are during tracking can always be fixed later in the mix” has prevailed, and mixing engineers are now forced to do a lot more “fixing” than they are mixing.
Yeah, okay, it’s accurate to say that some “fixing” has always been a part of mixing, and that all processors, like EQ and Gain Reduction, are corrective tools, too, but, these can also be (and often are) used creatively as well…to add texture and embellishment to tracks that already sound good, or even for creative effects…whereas Soothe is really only designed to repair bad sounding, poorly recorded tracks.
Personally, I find that having to spend so much time repairing poorly recorded tracks is not only tedious, and requires no creativity, but it is also really fatiguing as well.
If people just took a little more care, and a bit more time to get good sound at the source, with tracks that are well-recorded to begin with, there wouldn’t be a need for processors like Soothe.
IMO.
PLS READ WYTSE :)
Though i agree the plugin is badly built with all the distortion on sine waves but u got the concept wrong, the initial flat curve u called that 'what the AI think is right' that isn't the case
the eq is basically the threshold at which reduction starts happening but its different from a mband compressor is say I've set the threshold low from 1khz to 20khz and its compressing, its not actually compressing the whole band as one rather compressing each and every frequency in the range 1khz to 20khz ie 1000 hz, 1001 hz, 1002 hz and so on so imagine 19000 compressors for each frequency with the threshold defined by the curve (that changes with the focus dial) so basically the default straight line is a straight line that is pink noise reference so u saying 'it doesn't like the bass' is wrong because its trying to achieve a flat response set by u
Hence the bass frequencies are crossing the threshold causing all the frequencies on the low end to be compressed (yeah each frequency separately) causing the reduction in bass and not because the AI hates the bass
so yep its a unique tool, ofcourse with badly made filters causing distortion, but its different from the regular multiband comps as each and every frequency is compressed seperately
Soothe and melda spectral dynamics follow the same principle
Not necessarily bad filters, any compressor adds slight distortion, adding harmonics to the sound. Just tried it with the Ableton Compressor and it also creates harmonics on a pure sine wave, they are very very quiet though.
@@Kaixo yep exactly but yep as you said abletons one are very quiet as a digital comp should be but as in the video smooth operators are a ton of distortion that's why I said bad filters (which i actually made a mistake its not the filters but the compression quality on each frequency that's bad thanks for correcting me)
@@aabc I'm not sure how a digital compressor can have a *bad* quality, it's a very simple algorithm, I think the reason why this one creates louder harmonics is that it's probably a very complex algorithm since it compresses individual frequencies. We may never know.
@@Kaixo but tht doesnt explain soothe which is very clean
And a compressor can have bad quality mastering compressors like kotelnikov or weiss are known for their transparency and no distortion at extreme settings
Just saying its not a good plugin quality wise its meant to clean resonances not add a ton of harmonics
I think this plugin really shines on vocals, I like it more than soothe on vocals because you could use it like a de-esser too.
If u didn't know Soothe can work like a de-esser too and it works cleaner btw
@@MaisonLexBeatz I know. Soothe 2 is a great tool
Yes .. at least you can hear it ( good or bad is subjective ). Soothe is too subtle for 200 euros
@@cliveluis different strokes I guess, I own way too many plugins and Soothe is in my top five, don’t want to live without. For what it’s designed to accomplish it’s supposed to be subtle (but it can get destructive if you push it). One wouldn’t complain “this de-esser gets rid of the sibilance but it’s just too transparent sounding”. My 2cents, Soothe is the only “smart” plug-in that ends up on every project for me. The rest are hit or miss for me (including Gulfoss)
@@mrnelsonius5631 Agreed ..I have soothe 2 and use it, and I can clearly see why this plugin would appeal to others
I hope you all have a great day!
Not for a master, we already have Gulfoss, maybe more useful on tracks?
I bought it for vocals and i must say i am pretty happy. It gest me pretty fast to the sound ia am looking for ... sooo yeeeeah i am happy
I think i disagree with you this time. First of all harshness can be anywhere. No recording is perfect and especially when i hear how harsh a lot of pop music actually sounds it seems to me like a given that harshness is sometimes even a good thing. So don't say there's no harshness in a good recording. There definitely is, and it's sometimes even the sweet spot. And your test signal-test also didn't make a lot of sense. I mean just think of it. If there are really a lot of filters going on seperating the signal and putting a huge compressor on each of them it should be crystal clear that the outcome has quite some harmonics. your sine wave might sit between 2 bins and both of them fire hard at it, you know? I personally also didn't quite like how the stuff sounded through the plugin, but I must say this is a very unique UI and it might very well be that one has to learn that a bit first to get good results. I do get the idea of this plugin. The only thing that worries me a bit is that I didn't see any attack- or release-knobs. The sound was rather crushed already midway down with that middle-parameter and it would be nice to easen up the compression to compensate imo. spectral compression is an awesome new field of plugins and i'm very excited for the upcoming releases from this and the other developers who go into that direction
I think smooth operator is a great creative compressor / dynamic eq. And I feel the "intelligent" stuff is interesting for sound design. So I would say it's a great tool for producers - but not for mixing engineers.
Maybe a fault of baby audio's marketing... But If you disregard the supposed ai and assume that it doesn't have one - I think this plugin is great!
I liked this plugin when I reviewed it, but you have to be careful with it. I agree it could use a little more finesse.
bought that thing yesterday just out of curiosity. tried it on synths and piano, and wasn't really satiesfied at all. then tried it on vocals, and there I find it to be quite useful, to give it a little more clarity and reduce harshness. of course, nothing that can't be done with proper EQing. so I wouldn't see this plugin as a gamechanger at all, it's better to invest some time in proper EQing and compression. but it's a small tool that might come in handy for some occasions.
thanks for yet another great video Wytse!
better LEARN how to hear EQ , and apply tit - with any EQ...95% of the people on RUclips don't have that skill, since they didn't learn it hands on..They read about it, or watched videos...that's a long long hard road...
Hi Levon, there's nothing wrong in what you're saying. that's what I mean with proper EQing. to invest time and learn how it's done, which everybody who is seriously interested in mixing should do.
but you also have to see it from the other perspective: not everybody's focus is on mixing, nor do they want to invest hours and hours to learn how it's done.
there are a lot of creative people and musicians on youtube, who just want their music more or less good sounding so they can upload it.
and I think plugins like this, as well as all the other "smart" plugins that come out these days, they target exactly this group of people.
nothing for us, as we like to invest time and learn how to get better with our classic tools, but for them it might be just what they want, as their focus is on the music creation part.
Don’t think it was intended for the 2bus. It’s cool for flattening out foundsounds and squashing samples. Basically it’s cool creatively. subtle instrument enhancement seems to work.
It's NOT supposed to be used on material that doesn't need it... and it has 4 nodes with which its response can be tailored to ONLY focus on the areas of audio that need controlling (soothing), the use of which, require LISTENING and then applying the thresholds in the 4 nodes; followed by more listening and possibly adjusting... In a competent persons hands, with material that NEEDS the type of adjusting that it offers, it can be a very useful (and low cost) TIME SAVING problem solver... It's not a "multi-tool" fix all for every situation, but again, if the material needs what it can do, then it can do what it does well (in the right hands with the right ears).
I have a lot of time for this channel but on this occasion I think your mistaken. The best use case of Smooth Operator is to subtly tame harsh frequencies that sadly do end up on a mix or mastering engineers desk. For example if used carefully you can tame a zingy hi-hat in a master without adversely effecting other aspects of the mix. If you do it with a simple EQ cut or Dynamic EQ you run the risk of removing parts of the mix you wish to retain. I don't know how they do it but it does work and it's incredibly inexpensive when compared to other Spectral shapers like Soothe. 👏☺️👍
I like this little tool but I use it differently compared the stuff you shared. When a instrument has a certain harsh frequencies, it does a really nice job. I wouldn't use this tool over the whole track. I didn't do that, I use Gullfoss for that (only if it is needed). In my opinion it is a nice simple tool to tame a certain frequency area of a recorded track. Off course, when you are a recording engineer, your recordings should be already good but when you do mixes for other people and they don't deliver well recorded stuff, it is a nice tool to have :)
Lol it’s because now we are our own mix engineer. Helps with work flow. I’m an artist ,producer.so I like these type of quick helpful plugins.
You pulled the threshold down to like minus 50 in wideband style and acted really surprised that the plugin was sucking the life out of the low end. I thought you were joking at first. It seemed as if you were expecting it to do nothing... like the AI would have a little popup that reads.. "low end is perfect no changes needed" ANYWAY. On a positive note, I did find the sinewave part interesting. I saw the same thing in plugin Dr. I think you were a bit unfair. It did work well for a B3 that had some nasty frequecies I was working last week. It did a great job chasing the nasty frequecies from the poorly chosen B3 drawbar settings. The frequecies were a moving target. If it added overtones, I didn' t care b/c what it got rid of was worth the trade. Non the less you were digging real deep into a finished master that already sounded good. What would sound good at that extreme? You looked like you were late for a dinner date and couldn' t get through this review fast enough. This is not Gulfoss or Smoothe. Nor does it have those price tags. Just my two cents... it also is not very notch like, I found the focus a bit wide, it can grab areas you may want left alone, a sharper focus would be nice. I only used on one session for a problem instrument and saved me a ton of time not having to notch fiter every note above C2. BTW, yes all mixes prior to spectral enhancement are unlistenable... I had to burn my complete CD collection which were all at 16bit 44.1- how primitive. Audio engineering... a dying art form. Still waiting for the "make this song not suck" A.I. plugin. I think Slate is working with Greenday on that.
Baby audio just fixed the harmonics issue you called out. I feel like it was in direct response to your video.
It was, I have checked the beta to make sure it was fixed before they released it…
Now it has been fixed, is your opinion still the same about the plug in?
I will make a new video soon
@@Whiteseastudio Soon soon or soon? You’re the plug in voice of the people! And we got songs to mix ;)
Asap, but working on a correct demo 😉
A day late and a dollar short White Sea Audio. I already purchased this crap due to the great reviews I saw elsewhwere...where were you when I needed you?
the moral of this story is never buy a plugin until Wytse reviews it
Have you broken it in yet?
First rule - you don’t need it.
Second rule - don’t buy it.
Third rule - look what Izotope or fabfilter offer.
It was apparent from the first video reviews that this plugin sounded bad. Every time I looked away from the screen to listen, I preferred the bypassed clips. It just squashes the dimension out of everything.
Only rule for me is : never buy a plug-in you didn't have on your toolbox for at least a month. If the demo doesn't allow it, crack it. Imo you can't review a plug is for you in a shorter amount of time. If it make its way in your workflow you have to buy it. Otherwise, you uninstall it. Everyplug should come with a month trial version
For the past year, I’ve had only a few people come in and track in person due to COVID. Most of the material I get, my clients track and send me. That’s how the media gets on the mixing desk. As I can’t be there to tweak the tracking process, I have to do the best I can with what my clients send me. This could be a huge help for me. BTW, we aren’t mixing commercial records, but church choir music for streaming services.
Even expensive Kontakt Libraries sometimes have frequencies which someone could describe as harsh when boosted. And beside from that, there are a lot of engineers who have to mix or master songs not recorded by themselves, but by semi professionals or hobby musicians. In my experience lots of inexpensive (but "professional") local studios are not 100% properly treated, but small ensembles, solo singers or radio stuff is recorded there anyway. Not every location sounds perfect. I personally like oeksound soothe more, but this could be an affordable alternative for some people.
I compared with soothe2 by oeksound ,with a sinewave like you did, and there's no harmonic created on similar settings like this one...Soothe2 seems VERY clean.
The “Hi!” Killed me 😂🤣
Fast compression always creates harmonics specially on low frequencies
i would not say that the default setting produces a curve which should be perfect. It's simpler. The curve you see is the curve it will correct to. So a flat curver will "correct" your mix flat, which sounds awefull of course. Would definetly never use this on a channel of more than 1 instrument, more for shaping stuff and removing stuff
I love your reviews, but it would be awesome to hear plugins like this working on mixing and not just mastering
It would be great. The issue is finding all the Da Rude Sandstorms. Finding good royalty free songs is easier than finding good royalty free mixes.
I don’t use it for mastering, hence operator. This review was dogshit.
Maybe it's more for beatmakers where you pitch up/down your samples, add saturation and degrade the sound otherwise so these harsh frequencies can occur. You can go in with an eq and correct or lower these harsh or resonant frequencies but this plugin, to some degree, is kind of a one knob plugin for this problem. And I think that's what is it's primary goal. From the perspective of a real producer/mastering/mix engineer I understand the critique. But most people in the comments shit way too hard on this plugin. Especially for the price you get it for on a sale. Atleast imho
I could get rid of some vocal issues with this thing which I couldnt achieve with soothe and MSpectralDynamics.
Although I enjoy your banter, I think you missed the point on this plugin. It allows you to "target" what needs help and correction, and it's not meant to be applied to the WHOLE signal. The plugin attempts to give you some hints as to where the issues are, and it's up to you to filter out the areas you don't want to affect, like the low-end. A great example of the usage for this is de-essing vocals.
It is correcting the finished track, because you tell it to. Think!
This is a strange review. As I understand this plugin it supposed to be a problem solver, for bad sounding frequencies to be fixed . You cranked it all the time, it’s like reviewing a saturation plugin and just crank it to the max. It Will not sound any good. I have tried this plugin with a more gentle approach. Works fine. Just focus on one or two problem areas, narrow down the que. If there is more areas to be fixed, load up one more instance..
You can make use of this plugin by applying it to your own voice on this video. It is sounding kinda harsh. Actually it can be very useful for many podcast zoom recordings etc. that's also a big part of the audio industry, not every one out there works on good recordings. You have very entertaining videos on here Wytse but this is not the right way to test plugins.
I like that stuff like this plugin exists, because it can be used in creative and different ways and inevitably someone will use it to make something fairly unique sounding.
I don't think it's for me, though.
Some people only have one mic, and not enough money to rent a studio, I think that's why it says removed harsh resonances.
Hey you read your comments thanx man! It helped me with an acoustic guitar track that I just couldn't hear no matter what I tried. It also has a side chain. I just kissed the problem frequency/s. It seemed to define a dull track. Maybe a good engineer could fix it with eq and compression. For me in a home studio on a budget it's a problem solver.
I bought it. CPU-friendly and does the job. Good pick for the money.
Why use it as a full band compressor?! I would use it to tame problem frequencies in the bass or treble, or maybe in the nasal region.
I actually like this plugin for removing muddiness and harsh frequenties, but dynamically. So saves a lot of time instead of doing by hand.
Can u do a review on big clipper from Boz Digital labs? Its a blend between soft clipping and limiting. Really curious how u would use it.
This looks like a plugin that's just gonna make life harder...
The distortions of the 50 Hz sine tone were already significantly audible without a spectrometer. Compared to a multiband compressor such as Denise's 'DragonFire', I see no new value at all. In principle, however, I think the developers' idea is good, and I believe and hope that this will really come to the fore in the coming updates.
I agree it's a good idea but there are already plugins like Soothe that do the exact same thing only better.
@@AlexLong98 But man Soothe costs around 240 bucks. This is right now just for 40 bucks. So why not get this when on a budget. It has a few functions less that what Soothe has but still this is pocket friendly and in the ballpark of resonance suppressors and stuff.
@@rishabhbose29 Agreed! I actually prefer this plugin to soothe. Soothe is to much sometimes. I only use this to take out hardness or room resonance tho.
I think it has potential but it lacks a few things: Attack and Release response would be nice. I also don't get something, is it an A.I Dynamic EQ? then it needs Profiles like Sculptor, because if I am selecting the frequencies I want it to duck, then why don't I just do that with Fabfilter Pro-Q3 on dynamic mode or neutron or ozone? It just seems too general, Sculptor at least has specific complex profiles for "Distorted GTRs" based on how they think an EQ curve for a distorted guitar should sound.. or "Vocals" etc.. But I think with some work on extra features it could be great.
I have, and use, Smooth Operator (I also have Soothe:2 and Bloom from Oeksound.). I have to say that maybe you should have read the manual first, to help you understand what the plugin is actually doing. The line is a THRESHOLD. The graphics coming down from the top are telling you what the plugin is doing. You should check out the Presets as starting points. I think you missed the point of this plugin completely.
Your review made me feel like my engineering is coming along... as a gullfoss and soothe2 owner, I first heard smooth operator and thought, "sounds more tonal". With that being said, I bought it. Multiband and saturation cheat code even if it's blind. They just marketed it wrong lol.
Tom elmhirst is using a lot of notches on vocals, even Adele crazy recordings
Very interesting when you put the noise generator through. Is it ment to give you flat response? As in a starting point to shape your mix? I reacted also to the fact that it didn't like the bass, so I thought that it might be because it's trying to give you a starting point rather than an end point. Not sure about that coloration though....
Hilarious. I JUST NOW saw an ad for this and wondered whether you had covered it already. And yes you did. JUST NOW.
One more unnecessary plugin...Great! Just what I need!
I guess this should be used in a single instrument track. Why did you use it for a master track?
Unfortunatelty its becoming more common and even more so over lockdown that most of the vocals i get sent to mix are badly recorded at home in untreated rooms. Less people seem to want to record in a pro studio mostly down to costs. So unfortunately pluggins like this become more usefull and it suprises me sometimes how good i can get bad recorded vocals to sound, but i wish i dident have to.
Looks nice. Wonder what might end up on my PC. Soothe, Gullfoss, smart:EQ3, DSEQ3.... so much stuff.
Harsh frequencies on the source sound can result from experimentation with electronics. You can’t assume every end user is a pro recording studio where they’re using mics. A great many people are using plugins like this and Soothe because everything in their mix is synthetic. And when you’re using different filters (both digital or analog), harsh resonances definitely do build up. And sure, i could go in and automate multiple bands in a parametric EQ, but if i have a track that has obvious pain points and i can knock them out in 40 seconds, rather than spend an hour writing multiple automation curves over a whole track... yep. Useful. The main thing with tools like this is, keep it subtle. If you obliterate the whole resonance of your synth line, why did you bring the res up on it in the first place?
When would you ever be using this plugin on sub bass? Seems like you went into this review with quite a few preconceptions and weren't really using the plugin as intended - gonna try it out for myself.
This distortion already happens on things like grand piano… also, Baby Audio has fixed this issue because I made a video about it.
what is causing that dent on your left hand by your thumb
Honestly I've had this theory for a while. It's sort of a wild conspiracy theory. but I think these plugin manufacturers are the ones behind convincing modern artists they need extremely bright harsh sibilant microphones so that they can sell mixing engineers these types of plugins. It's genius
Wtf?
Oh come on. Harsh frequencies are always there on your desk: Soft synths, overprocessed sampled libraries, frequency build-up in dense mixes. meeowing cats in the backyard, ...
2:55 "Okay, lets' stop all the thinking and..." ...start drinking the Kool Aid, shall we?
why is it so difficult for this guy to understand that a lot of people are recording probably their own music in subpar conditions and some tracks will need a bit of fixing? not every recording will end up on a stupid engineer's desk ffs
It may not be great on mixes, or on bass. I do like to use it on vocals though. Subtly! And because I mix vocals recorded by the singer (that's the situation right now). Fortunately I got it cheap anyway. I do agree with the video.
Video has 1 thumbs down, so I guess the programmer's been here already Lol
haha the intro is perfect: "it is threedimensional, it is really nice to hold it"..
This plugin is suppose to works more broad and gentle on their curve (q) like the name suggest "smooth". It's not intended to be a surgical tool like soothe 2 and it's not a smart eq!.
Harshness happens even in the most high-end recording environment, sometimes is just the summing of things that brings you there. There isn't a perfect mic for every single human voice. Harshness is something you have to deal in recording situation and mixing stage as well. Recording situation are challenging, new ideas come across the process, it's not a schemata process you follow in order to avoid every possible audio problems. Also you are not always in a confortable situtation with millions of mic at your disposals or endless time to try every setting possible. You have to deal also with sibillances, that is part of human voice.
Every mixing engineers should daily deal with some portion of harshness, this is not always a problem, sometimes it's also matter of taste. Smooth operator can be useful if used in a smart way.
"In a good recording, there are no harsh frequencies"
There are so many mixed and mastered records where the sibilances in the vocals just rip your ears off every time.
Why is Smooth Operator referencing white noise??? Gullfoss and Soothe reference the pink noise slope with good reason. Does Baby Audio know that the human ear prefers pink noise over white noise? Compare the spectral slope of any commercial mix with that of the pink noise slope. If you pull Smooth Operator down in its default setting, all sources sound thin. The reference is supposed to be the pink noise slope. Please fix this Baby Audio.
I like to add tons of different distortion effects on my instruments, then I cut out the “annoying” frequencies. This tool is perfect for that purpose
This must work best on a not perfect, maybe nasal vocal or a piano? Not a finished song.
Request: if the new version is going to be reviewed again: is it possible to make a comparison to the Plugin Alliance ProAudioDSP DSM V3?
Thank you
i love your channel but i never understood why you sometimes demonstrate surgical plugins on music that doesn’t need any surgery, and then say they don’t work well or that they make things sound worse. you gotta use them on something that has a legit problem that you’re trying to solve. this plugin isn’t a soundgoodizer like OTT or something.
(in this case you’re more forgiven…those harmonics are absurd lol)
I never understand output muting trails, surely you want full functionality so it gets so baked in to your mixes you have to buy it?
I was going to say it reminded me of a c4 but it seems to do what is programmed into better than what it's "ai" tells it to do.. so your actually getting the programmers taste instead of actually being a sound balancing tool
Yeah I find Izotope Neutron also tends toward Making almost everything I put through it overly bright. Smart EQ 2 also, but not always.
surprised you also got that jaws t-shirt... nice :)